


Celebrate The Ancients (If You've Got The Patience)

by chamel



Series: Love Is A Great Teacher [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Professors, Classics, College, Cooking, Established Relationship, Gaby POV, I would have thought there would be more pandemic related tags lol, Illya POV, M/M, Marriage, Napoleon pov, Online Teaching, POV Outsider, Pandemics, Quarantine, Slice of Life, Soft boys being soft, The University of Chicago, Zoom Sessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28631409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/pseuds/chamel
Summary: Dr. Napoleon Solo had only been on the faculty for four years, but damn if he hadn’t made quite the impression on the student body. There are few who don’t know who he is; hell, there’s a student-run twitter account dedicated to Solo Sightings around campus and Hyde Park. Lorna’s a Biology major and hardly needs a Classics course to graduate, but she wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to take a class from him. Anyway, she’d always been interested in the ancient world, and had figured it would be a nice break from her other coursework.And now, instead of basking twice a week in the presence of the man who might actually be a Greek god reincarnated, she gets to watch him on a tiny laptop screen. Thisdefinitelysucks.(Yes, this is just as absurd as it sounds. Lorna is a student stuck in quarantine and online courses, with only the intriguing glimpses of her professor's personal lives to spice things up. Meanwhile, Drs. Solo & Kuryakin must navigate teaching their courses remotely and Gaby tries not to go insane in quarantine.)
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin & Napoleon Solo & Gaby Teller, Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Series: Love Is A Great Teacher [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2098173
Comments: 24
Kudos: 94





	Celebrate The Ancients (If You've Got The Patience)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow up to Amor Magnus Doctor Est, but it could also be read as a standalone if you're willing to take it at face value that Napoleon and Illya are married Classics professors, and Gaby works with them at the college. The first work takes place in the pre-pandemic times, and as I got toward the end of writing that one I was struck with an overwhelming urge to write a silly pandemic-themed follow-up. Also because I wanted to make the photo manip at the end.
> 
> Full disclosure that I am a professor married to another professor in the same department at my college, so this is probably a little too real. I'm sure my students do NOT gossip about me like this, although it is weird that they always seem to know we're married without us telling them. But I digress.
> 
> The title is from "Come On! Feel the Illinoise! Part 1 - The World's Columbian Exposition" by Sufjan Stevens (Did you know that the World's Columbian Exposition took place in part on the University of Chicago campus? So I had to use a line from it for this.)

There are no two ways about it: this quarter is going to suck.

Lorna keeps telling herself that at least she’s not a fourth year. As terrible as being cooped up inside her shitty Hyde Park apartment and having to take all her classes online will be, she can’t imagine having the final quarter of her college career so thoroughly ruined. No Senior Week, no Pub, no Scav Hunt??? What a waste that would be.

She’s certainly not excited about online coursework, but to add insult to injury, she had actually gotten into the hottest class on the books that quarter: Dr. Solo’s “Eroticism in Antiquity” course. A friend who didn’t get in had told her that the class had a waitlist at least fifty students deep, and for good reason. Not only is the subject matter _obviously_ interesting, but it’s also taught by perhaps the most attractive professor on campus.

Dr. Napoleon Solo had only been on the faculty for four years, but damn if he hadn’t made quite the impression on the student body. There are few who don’t know who he is; hell, there’s a student-run twitter account dedicated to Solo Sightings around campus and Hyde Park. Lorna’s a Biology major and hardly needs a Classics course to graduate, but she wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to take a class from him. Anyway, she’d always been interested in the ancient world, and had figured it would be a nice break from her other coursework.

And now, instead of basking twice a week in the presence of the man who might actually be a Greek god reincarnated, she gets to watch him on a tiny laptop screen. This _definitely_ sucks.

The first class session they have over zoom is kind of a hot mess. She can hardly blame Solo—it’s not like any of them have any experience with this stuff—but they spend the first half of the class period just trying to get things set up, with the teaching assistant, April, doing most of the troubleshooting.

“I think this computer hates me,” Solo grumbles, looking unfairly adorable as he squints at the screen in front of him, glasses sliding down his nose. “Maybe I should borrow my husband’s laptop,” he adds under his breath.

Lorna can practically hear people murmuring, even though they’re all on mute.

The hot news on campus last fall was that Dr. Solo had gotten _married_ the previous summer. Lorna is sure that she had heard the wailing of a thousand undergrads, and maybe a few grad students, when the news “broke” on the Solo Sightings twitter. As if any of them had a snowball’s chance in hell before then. What’s not common knowledge, at least among the larger campus community, is who Solo’s mysterious spouse is. The Solo Sightings twitter is strangely silent on the matter. Lorna knows she could probably find out if she messaged her former suitemate, Katie, who is actually a Classics major, but she kind of likes the mystery.

* * *

“This quarter is going to _suck_ ,” Napoleon says with no shortage of disgust as he walks into the living room where Illya is currently sitting on the couch, doing something on his laptop. Probably working, given the current circumstances—they’re always working lately, since they had to transition to remote classes with little more than a week’s notice—although it’s late enough in the day that he could conceivably be zoning out on the internet instead.

“First class went that well?” Illya asks, cocking an eyebrow at him.

Napoleon flops down onto the couch next to his husband, but then almost immediately pushes himself back up when he considers that he really needs a fucking drink. “Computers hate me, Peril,” he calls as he walks into the kitchen. He grabs a pair of tumblers and a bottle of Scotch, and once he re-enters the living room, he adds sarcastically, “so being all online is going to be a blast.”

“They don’t hate you, Cowboy,” Illya says as he accepts a tumbler of whisky and takes a sip. “They can just sense your fear.”

“Very funny. It’d be embarrassing if the so-called ‘digital natives’ I’m teaching weren’t equally terrible at using anything that’s not a smartphone.”

Illya snorts a soft laugh at that, shaking his head. “How did I never know about your aversion to computers before we started living together?”

“I’m very good at hiding it,” Napoleon posits, “until you force me to do literally all of my work using one.”

“I’m not going to be your tech support this quarter, Cowboy,” Illya warns, glancing at him sideways, which just makes Napoleon grin. He leans in to press a sloppy kiss to Illya’s cheek, then nuzzles his way over to the angle of his jaw.

“Hmm, I think you will.”

Illya pretends to ignore his ministrations, staring down at the laptop screen in front of him. “Is that so? And why would I do that?”

“Because you love me,” Napoleon murmurs, sucking lightly over Illya’s pulse point and grinning again when Illya’s breath unmistakably hitches. “And I’ll make it worth your time.”

And then, all at once, Illya is on the move. He almost tosses the laptop onto the coffee table in front of them, turning quickly and pressing Napoleon back into the couch with one hand as the other slides readily under the hem of Napoleon’s shirt. A wolfish grin curls his lips, and the whole situation shocks a surprised laugh out of Napoleon when he finds himself quite suddenly on his back with a large Russian crawling on top of him. The whisky in his tumbler sloshes dangerously close to the lip of the glass, and he somewhat futilely tries to steady it before he gives up and drops it onto the floor next to the couch; by some miracle, it manages not to spill all over the rug.

“What was that about ‘worth my time,’ Cowboy?”

Napoleon huffs, though he’s hardly put out by this turn of events. “You didn’t even help today,” he accuses, gasping a little as Illya’s cool hands slip across his skin.

“Mmm, well maybe I am billing my hours in advance,” Illya hums.

Before Napoleon can answer, Illya captures his mouth, kissing him deeply, and Napoleon _certainly_ can’t complain about that. And, well, if this is going to be his response to being asked for computer help, Napoleon can’t help but think that maybe he’ll have to make sure to “need” _plenty_ of assistance over the next few months.

* * *

In her defense, quarantine is _boring_. Not that Lorna’s not crazy busy—it seems like she has so much more work for her courses, somehow—but when you can’t go anywhere or see anybody except your roommate, the littlest things start becoming a lot more entertaining than they should be.

Solo’s classes have become the highlight of her week, and not just because of the eye candy they provide. The class is genuinely great, even if it wasn’t designed to be online originally, but if asked, Lorna would certainly deny that her interest in the zoom sessions is at least in part because of the hints that are constantly being dropped about Solo’s husband.

At first it’s just the occasional little mention, like in the first session. They don’t provide any major insights, except for maybe the fact that Solo clearly is ridiculously in love with the guy. Lorna’s pretty sure he doesn’t realize that he has this particular smile that always seems to make its way onto his face whenever he talks about him. It might be disgusting if it wasn’t so endearing.

But then, one day, Solo is in a different location than normal. Instead of what must be a home office, he’s sitting on a couch. That in and of itself isn’t particularly noteworthy—it’s kind of a boring couch, if she’s being honest—but partway through the class Solo gets distracted by something, or someone, off-screen. Whoever it is says something, and he’s too far away for the microphone to pick up anything but a low rumble. Solo doesn’t say anything, but that soft smile slips onto his lips for just a second, and Lorna knows for sure that Solo’s husband is _right there_.

It only get’s worse—or better, depending on your perspective—from there. Solo’s husband starts showing up more and more as the quarter wears on and Solo himself gets more relaxed about the location and conditions under which he holds classes. Solo will be in his office with the door partly open, and there will be the briefest flash of someone walking past the doorway. There’s more talking, although they never get clear audio of his husband’s voice, just that it’s deep and maybe accented. Micah swears that it’s something slavic, but Lorna isn’t sure.

Micah, of course, is Lorna’s friend and roommate; the only person she sees on a regular basis now that their third roommate had gone home for the rest of the year. She’s also gotten thoroughly wrapped up into the intrigue of Solo’s husband even though she’s not registered for the course, and regularly complains that none of her classes are _nearly_ this entertaining.

Solo is on the couch again today, which is always promising for sightings or other hints, though there’s been no sign of his husband yet. But then Solo looks up, distracted by something behind his computer screen, and his eyes track from left to right.

“Micah!” Lorna calls from her room. She can hear her roommate scramble out her bed at once. “Possibly hubs inbound!”

Micah is behind her in a matter of moments, peering over her shoulder at the screen with interest. Usually, in these situations, nothing much happens, but today they are not disappointed. Solo cuts off in the middle of what he’d been saying, looking to his right, and then the slope of a shin appears on the edge of the screen, as if his husband has put his legs up on the couch.

“You can’t wait ten minutes?” Solo says, arcing an eyebrow at his husband off-screen.

“We have an office, you know,” is the response. It’s the first time they’ve heard his voice clearly, and there is an unmistakable teasing note in it. Then he nudges Solo with his foot and says something in a language that Lorna definitely does not understand.

“Was that… Russian?” she asks, glancing back at Micah.

Her roommate shrugs. “Could have been. Told you the accent was slavic.”

Lorna’s about to tell her that she doesn’t have to be so smug about it when her attention is drawn back to the computer in front of her because Solo says something back in the same language, a somewhat mischievous grin on his face. Which, she supposes, makes sense, though it still surprises her for a moment.

“Isn’t there another professor in the Classics department who’s Russian?” Micah asks her. On the screen, the leg disappears and Solo picks up where he left off in his lecture.

“Hell if I know,” Lorna answers. “Do I look like a Classics major?” Micah gestures at the laptop and the obvious Classics course there, and Lorna makes a face at her. “You know like 90% of the people in this class aren’t Classics majors, right? If you really want to know, I could message my friend Katie.”

“No no,” Micah says, shaking her head. “Not yet. This is too much fun.” Then she spins on her heels and takes off back toward her room.

“Where are you going?” Lorna calls after her.

“Looking up the Classics faculty page!”

“You’re insane, you know that?”

There’s an unmistakable snort from Micah’s room. “Don’t pretend you’re not doing the same thing!”

Well. That’s different. Lorna has perfectly good reasons for going to the faculty directory, like checking on when Solo’s office hours are (never mind that she knows already). And if she happens to have to scroll through the list of names and pictures while she’s there, that’s just incidental.

* * *

Gaby hasn’t seen another actual person _in person_ in a week. Well, she saw someone across the street, on the opposite sidewalk, when she once stepped out to take a walk, but that hardly counts. She’s found herself sliding into quite an isolated, quarantine funk since the order came down that all work would be remote. Most of her work couldn’t really _be_ remote, or rather, it could if she had the materials, but as of now they were all banned from campus buildings, so she couldn’t even get what she needed. She’s lucky enough to have some digital work for now, but everything seems to take her less time when she has no one to distract her throughout the day.

At first it’s kind of nice: a few days of sitting on the couch, watching Netflix, not changing out of her pajamas. That got old pretty fast, though. Now, a month into quarantine, she knows she would have completely lost it if not for her best friends. Thank god they live within walking distance. The only reason she knows it’s been a week since she’s seen anyone is that tonight is their standing dinner night, and at least quarantine hasn’t taken _that_ away from her. Normally she’s over at their place even more frequently, but it’s almost midterms, and neither of them have been great company lately. Even under pandemic standards.

That afternoon she takes a shower for the first time in—well, she’d rather not say—and changes into real clothes, even putting on makeup even though the only people who will see her are her married friends. Whatever. She knows Napoleon will compliment her on her effort, at least. Grabbing the bottle of wine she got delivered from the local liquor store, she takes a deep breath of the still-crisp April air that is just beginning to hint of spring.

Neither Illya nor Napoleon are in the living room when she lets herself into their townhouse with her spare key. There are soft voices coming from the direction of the kitchen, which isn’t surprising. She can picture it now: Napoleon standing over the stove, working on whatever frankly over-the-top, elaborate meal he’s decided to make this week (quarantine has only made it _worse_ , somehow), and Illya sitting at the kitchen table, possibly assigned some task relating to the dinner, or possibly just watching his husband in an utterly smitten way (not that he’d admit it). It makes her smile despite herself.

“I’m here!” she calls, kicking off her shoes in the doorway.

“Kitchen!” Illya yells back, as if they would be anywhere else.

Gaby sweeps into the large kitchen, heading straight for the wine glasses and opener. Popping open the bottle she brought, she pours three glasses and then makes her rounds, dropping them off with each of her friends and collecting the requisite cheek kisses as she does so. For not the first time, she thanks the lord that they are a tiny quarantine bubble of three and that she can still manage to get actual human contact every once in a while.

“Is that new eyeliner?” Napoleon asks, right on cue.

Gaby smirks at him. “No, I just haven’t worn it in more than a month. What’s for dinner?”

“Coq au vin with rosemary goat cheese smashed potatoes, lemon garlic roasted asparagus, and fresh baked sourdough baguette,” Napoleon rattles off without fanfare. “Oh, and there’s pie for desert.”

When she glances at Illya he just shrugs with his palms up in an expression that unmistakably says ‘ _I just let him do what he wants,_ ’ and Gaby has to hold back a snicker. “You know, most people seem to have _less_ energy lately,” she drawls, sipping her wine.

Napoleon half turns toward her and cocks an eyebrow. “You have your quarantine coping mechanisms, I have mine. Not all of us have the wherewithal to binge whole seasons of old TV shows in a single day.”

“Hey!” she shoots back. “It’s been several weeks since I did anything of the sort. If _someone_ would send me more stuff to work on, it’d be easier to be productive.”

“Still can’t get into the lab?” Illya asks when she looks at him pointedly.

Gaby shakes her head. “Keycard to the building still doesn’t work. I tried again a couple of days ago. You know, I heard that the biology people can get into _their_ building, how is that fair?”

“They have actual live animals to take care of in there,” Illya points out. “The broken pots will survive without you. I did find something for you the other day, though. Give me a second.”

With that he exits the kitchen, and Gaby wanders over to lean against the counter next to the stove where Napoleon is currently whisking something in a pan. “Anything exciting happen around here lately?”

Napoleon snorts at that, shaking his head. “Caught one of my students plagiarizing on their midterm paper, so that’s awesome. Why do they think that using a thesaurus to replace a few words will fool anyone?”

“Ugh,” Gaby says, wrinkling her nose.

“Sometimes makes for some unintentionally hilarious sentences, though, so I guess at least there’s that. What about you?”

She shrugs, and sips her wine. “Finished another book. And I think I might be single-handedly keeping Kimbark Liquors in business.”  
  
“Hardly,” Illya puts in as he comes back into the room. “Cowboy deserves at least half of the credit for his whiskey consumption.”

Napoleon scoffs at this, pursing his lips. “Don’t think I don’t see you drinking my good bourbon when you think I’m not looking.”

“ _Our_ bourbon, you mean,” Illya shoots back.

“Now, now, boys, there’s enough booze for everyone. Assuming there are no supply-chain interruptions.”

They all shudder at that particular thought.

Illya had returned with a moderately-sized box, which he now sets on the kitchen table, pulling out something wrapped in slightly yellowed newsprint. With a great deal of care, he slowly peels back the paper to reveal a ceramic fragment about the size of his palm.

“Where did this come from?” Gaby asks, her brow furrowing as she takes it from him.

“An older site, few years ago. This box got lost when they all got shipped back, and showed up eventually at my apartment instead of the college. I never got around to bringing it in. If you’re looking for something to do…”

Gaby practically squeaks with joy—who’d have thought getting work to do would be this exciting, not her, that’s for sure—and yanks Illya down by his arm so that she can press an enthusiastic kiss to his cheek. “Oh, you wonderful procrastinator! This is amazing!”

“Do not say I never gave you anything,” Illya laughs. “Some of them probably got more broken in shipping.”

“Perfect,” she grins as she pulls a few more pieces out, unable to help herself from taking a peek.

“All right you two, artifacts off the table, please,” Napoleon scolds, his tone all fond exasperation. “Assuming you actually do want to eat tonight?”

So chastised, Illya and Gaby wrap the fragments back up and tuck them away in the box. From what she can tell, it will be enough to keep her busy for a few weeks at least, maybe longer. Surely by then, this whole thing will have died down some and she’ll be able to get back into her lab.

* * *

“What makes you think he’s a Classics professor?” Lorna argues. “Or even a professor here at all? He could be literally anyone.”

Micah waves her hand dismissively and takes another swig of her beer. “There are tons of professors married to each other.”

“Like who?”

“There’s a pair in the psych department,” Micah answers. “Oh, and isn’t there a bio prof and a math prof who’re together?”

Lorna has to give her that one. She’d forgotten about Dr. Denton’s wife; all of his desktop backgrounds were pictures of them on vacation. “Doesn’t mean he’s in the same department.”

(Yes, in fact, they were spending their evening drinking cheap beer and arguing about Solo’s husband. Not like there was anything more interesting to do; they’d already re-watched every past season of Bake Off on Netflix. Blame the pandemic.)

“They’ve published papers together,” Micah points out. She had, of course, immediately done all the research she could about Dr. Illya Kuryakin, and was convinced she’d figured it out. Privately, Lorna suspected she was right, but she enjoyed playing devil’s advocate anyway.

“That hardly means anything. Lots of people have long-term collaborators and they’re not _married_ to them.”

“Seems too big to be a coincidence to me,” Micah says. “He collaborates with a Russian, he’s married to a Russian…”

Lorna sips her own beer thoughtfully. “Maybe he met his husband _through_ Kuryakin. Friend of a friend kind of deal. Besides, I remember Katie had a class with that guy our first year. Always said he was kinda gruff and terrifying.”

The unspoken argument, of course, is that from what they know of Solo’s husband, he doesn’t seem that gruff or terrifying. In fact, he seems like kind of a goofball. Since the couch incident, he’s shown up (off-screen, of course) several times to tease Solo about this or that, usually something about her professor’s somewhat stunning incompetence with computers.

“First years think all professors are terrifying,” Micah retorts, and she has a point.

Still, Lorna’s not ready to give up so easily. “I still think he might be a scientist. Maybe physics. There’s a guy about Solo’s age in the department, Petrovich. Could be him.”

“No way,” Micah answers, shaking her head. “Solo is way out of that guy’s league. Kuryakin, on the other hand, is very clearly a hottie. Everyone’s always talking about Solo this, Solo that, but if you ask me, Kuryakin is the underrated eye candy in that department. I mean, c’mon: did you _see_ those photos in the National Geographic article?”

The magazine article that Micah had unearthed was from seven years ago and had covered Kuryakin’s archaeological excavations. It had also featured some rather mouthwatering photography of him shoveling in a sweat-drenched t-shirt, and a shot of him smiling as he showed off a chunk of pottery, brilliant blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. There could be no denying that Illya Kuryakin was an extremely attractive man.

“Looks aren’t everything,” Lorna says, but then adds, “but can you imagine the two of them together, though? Probably illegal to have that much attractiveness in one place.”

“Ooh,” Micah jumps in, “must be why there aren’t any photos of them online together.” Lorna looks at her expectantly, waiting for an explanation, and she breaks into a wide grin. “The combined hotness just melts all cameras that try to capture it.”

They both erupt into hysterical laughter at that, then spend the rest of the night trying to come up with hotter celebrity couples as counter-evidence to the potential camera-melting properties of a Solo-Kuryakin marriage. It is surprisingly difficult.

* * *

“I have office hours now, you know,” Illya says when Napoleon opens the office door and walks in without so much as a knock.

Napoleon just smirks at him, looking pointedly at the screen of his laptop where the active window is clearly not a zoom session. “I could tell you weren’t talking to anyone,” he replies. “I just needed to grab something.”

When they had bought this place a couple of years ago, they had compromised on having only a single room that served as their home office in order to gain a prime location near campus and a large, recently-updated kitchen. It had never been a problem, given that they tended to do most of their work in their offices on campus anyway, but that was before they started spending _all_ of their time at home. It’s still not too big of a deal; they trade off, and whoever isn’t using the office just sets up in the living room or at the kitchen table, but it also means that sometimes they have situations like this.

“Anyone come by today yet?” Napoleon asks as he bends over to root around in one of his desk drawers. He’s wearing a button down shirt over pajama pants, because he had a zoom committee meeting earlier today, and Illya certainly doesn’t take a moment to admire his husband’s stupidly hot plaid flannel ass before he reluctantly turns back to the work on his computer.

“No one,” he answers. Illya can’t remember the last time any of his students actually came to zoom office hours. Mostly he spends the time getting other things done for class or his research.

Napoleon is silent for a moment, and then Illya feels a hand on his shoulder and lips brushing his ear. “Good,” Napoleon murmurs, his mouth curling into a grin.

“Cowboy—” Illya warns, but his protest cuts off when Napoleon begins kissing his way down the column of his neck. He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, trying to center himself and do his best to ignore his ridiculous husband. “I am _working_ ,” he forces out.

“So take a break,” Napoleon suggests. He tugs on the back of Illya’s chair so that it slides away from the desk just enough to let him slip sideways into Illya’s lap. “C’mon, it’s Friday. Almost time for drinks, anyway.”

Illya laughs at him, and his hands end up wrapped around Napoleon’s hips almost without his permission. “You are incorrigible,” he accuses.

“But I’m not wrong,” Napoleon says before he leans into kiss him deeply.

Illya really should be working. And someone could show up in the zoom session at any time, though his camera is definitely off. Still… it’s been a long week, and this is so much more appealing than anything else he’d been doing before. He gives over to the moment, losing himself in the comfortable, easy intimacy. One of Napoleon’s hands squeezes his waist while the other threads up through his hair, fingertips digging gently into Illya’s scalp in the best way.

He’s not sure how long they sit there, but it’s certainly less time than he’d like. His computer chimes as someone enters the zoom session, and he sighs heavily as Napoleon presses his face into Illya’s shoulder, chuckling softly.

“Of _course_ you have a student now,” he huffs. Pulling back, Napoleon smooths a hand over Illya’s hair to tuck away the mussed strands and grabs one last quick kiss before he stands up. “Duty calls. See you in”—he checks his watch—“a half hour?”

“You’ll have a drink ready for me, yes?”

Napoleon grins. “Of course, Peril. It is Friday, after all.”

* * *

“Ah, goddamn it,” Solo mutters under his breath, squinting at the computer. “Sorry folks, just gimme a sec—” He looks off screen, frowning. “Peril, these stupid breakout rooms won’t go, can you just— am I crazy?”

This is not the first time Solo has called for his husband to come help with some zoom-related issue. It is, however, the first time that he accidentally leaves his camera on. A second later, another face appears in the corner of the screen, and Micah’s theory of camera-melting is put to the test.

“What did you do now?” Kuryakin says, a little crease of confusion appearing between his brows.

“MICAH!” Lorna almost screams. “He’s _on camera!!_ ”

At this point it’s hardly a surprise, but still, getting the confirmation is kind of shocking. Lorna fully expected to have to finally give up and message Katie at the end of the quarter, but no: there, on her laptop screen, is Dr. Illya Kuryakin, apparently trying to fix whatever his husband broke on the zoom call.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Solo retorts, gesturing at the computer, “it was just like this—”

Suddenly Micah is squealing in her ear, and she can’t hear anything else that’s going on. “I TOLD YOU,” her roommate shouts triumphantly as she does a little dance of joy around the room.

Lorna imagines that the class has basically erupted into chaos after finally getting a look at Solo’s husband after nearly an entire quarter of tantalizing hints. Indeed, some of her classmates have taken to the zoom chat to discuss it, even though, as their TA so helpfully points out, Solo can read what they’re writing.

And then, just like that, it’s over. Kuryakin must figure out whatever had been going wrong, because suddenly they’re all dumped into breakout rooms and Solo’s video feed disappears from her screen.

“Well,” she says to Micah, “I guess that proves they don’t melt cameras.”

Her roommate is too high on victory to be brought low, though. “You don’t know that until he brings you out of the breakout rooms,” Micah counters, dancing away out of the room.

And, well, Lorna supposes she has a point.

* * *

“Why are students so weird about their professor’s personal lives?” Illya asks, smirking down at the screen.

“Huh?” Napoleon says. He’s still too busy trying to make sure everyone made it into their designated rooms to pay attention to the students themselves, but then Illya points at the chat where several of his students were discussing Illya’s sudden appearance. “Ah,” he huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “I think sometimes they’re surprised to find out we’re not just robots that power down at night.” He pauses to send a message to his students about the topic they’re supposed to be discussing. “D’you think your students speculate about me?”

“No,” Illya answers right away as he straightens, looking down at him with an amused expression. “I told them about you on the first day of class.”

Napoleon blinks at him. “You did? In what context?”

“Of course I did. I was talking about interpretations of Latin texts and I mentioned my brilliant husband’s research.”

“Oh,” Napoleon says, brow furrowing. “And you referred to me by name?”

“No, but the citations are right there on the slide.” Illya shrugs. “Anyway, I’m not the one who’s class is full of nonmajors. All of my students are in Classics, so they already know anyway.”

Napoleon supposes he has a point. Their relationship has never been a secret, at least not since he’s been employed at the college, but it’s not like they discuss their personal lives with their students. Still, the Classics department is small and close-knit enough that anyone who declares Classics as a major finds out pretty quickly (it helps that Illya has a photo of them from their wedding1 on his desk at work; Napoleon has a matching one, but his desk is usually far too much of a disaster for anyone to actually _see_ it).

“Did you really call me your brilliant husband?”

Illya’s lips twist into a wry grin. “Yes. Why? Is it a problem?”

“No,” Napoleon answers quickly. “It’s just… all those years ago, I would have never guessed you were such a sentimentalist, Peril.” He can’t help but grin as Illya flushes at that, ducking his head a bit and grumbling something that Napoleon can’t quite make out. “I should probably go check on my students and make sure they’re actually working, but thank you for fixing my zoom session, dear,” he says, flashing a wide, toothy smile before he grabs Illya’s hand and yanks down to give him a quick kiss. “Maybe by the end of the quarter I’ll have actually figured out how to use this stupid software.”

(Later, Napoleon will realize that although all the students were in breakout rooms, his camera was still on and he hadn’t paused the recording of the zoom session. He will spend a little while trying to figure out how to edit the kiss out of the video before giving up and just leaving it in there, like a little easter egg for the five students who actually bother to rewatch the lectures when studying.

He will never know that gifs of said kiss, in which he looks entirely besotted and Illya is a rather charming shade of red when he’s pulled down into the camera frame, will make the rounds among more than a few student group chats on campus and will eventually get posted on tumblr, accompanied by the tags **#you wish your professors were this hot** and **#scholarshipping.** 2)

“You’ll be ready for remote classes in the fall, then,” Illya suggests, smirking.

Napoleon groans. “Don’t even joke about that. There’s no way I’ll be able to handle another quarter of this.”3

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. (credit to eavos for finding this photo that was very clearly taken at their wedding *nodnod*)[return to text]  
> 2\. Yes this tag is based [on a tumblr post](https://penntoxide.tumblr.com/post/638955271292616704/viostormcaller-oi-dancing-boy-comickit)[return to text]  
> 3\. Spoiler alert: and then they had to deal with it the entire next academic year. 😭
> 
> ————————
> 
> I probably spent far too much time on that photo manip, but it makes me laugh, and I hope it made you laugh too. Make sure you look at all the little details, lol. Thanks for indulging me this bit of silliness. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'd love to hear if you did! Your comments and kudos mean the world to me!


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